


something worth losing

by themuslimbarbie



Category: Arrow (TV 2012), DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV), DCTV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - The Time Traveler's Wife, Established Relationship, F/M, Long-Distance Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-13
Updated: 2016-06-13
Packaged: 2018-07-14 18:27:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7185194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themuslimbarbie/pseuds/themuslimbarbie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Every time he looks at her with all this love in his eyes, Sara can’t help but wonder if it’s for her, or a version of her only he knows.</p>
            </blockquote>





	something worth losing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [minachandler](https://archiveofourown.org/users/minachandler/gifts).



> prompt: "we should meet"

**“I never wanted to have anything in my life that I couldn't stand losing. But it's too late for that.”**

* * *

In the beginning, Sara doesn’t go home often.

In her defense, there aren’t exactly many opportunities, what with the missions and getting stuck in random eras. The few times she does go are entirely by accident – first in 2046 to a Star City littered with crime, and then to May 2016 to news that makes her feel as if there’s no reason to return. The third time falls somewhere (some when?) in between, during a time when the team is being hunted down and Rip finds a Time Fragmentation in Star City a few years in Sara’s future.

She is in the process of trying to hunt down her dad’s apartment when she feels the hairs on the back of her neck prickle up. Sara spins around expecting a rogue time traveler hell bent on killing her. Instead, she finds a middle-aged Oliver Queen smiling at her in that way he used to once upon a time ago. Back when they thought there was a chance that they could be happy together.

“Hello, Sara,” he says gently.

And maybe it’s the way he says it or the tenderness in his eyes, but she immediately knows this isn’t the first time he’s seen her in all these years. Maybe not even the second or third time. Which means there’s more to come in their future. In hers.

“Ollie?” she says as if it’s a question. Which it clearly isn’t, because, despite everything, there is no doubt the man in front of her is her Oliver. And, in that moment, she has a dozen questions to ask him – when did this start? How often do they meet? Is it intentional or does she start making accidental trips to Star City? – But only one question comes out: “How did you find me?”

Oliver’s smile fades slightly, but the tenderness doesn’t waiver. “I will _always_ find you,” he says as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

And, standing there with the beginning of a beard on his chin and all the love in the world in his eyes, Sara believes him.

 

**.**

 

Oliver never knows which version of her he will meet, much less when it will happen. Sometimes she manages to appear right when he and his team need her the most. Sometimes she shows up too late and blames herself for what she cannot go back and change. And sometimes, well, sometimes she doesn’t show up at all. Sometimes he goes years without hearing from her, without knowing where she is – _when_ she is – and if she’s okay. Without knowing if he will ever see her again.

Sometimes, Sara doesn’t even know.

That’s the thing about time travel, he learns, it’s pretty damn chaotic. Chock-full of question marks and paradoxes and things that don’t make any sense but somehow still manage to play out.

 _Time has a way of setting itself_ , Sara explains once. _Certain things will always happen, no matter how much you want to change them_.

She never once calls it destiny. Oliver doesn’t know if that’s because time is more complex than that or if Sara is just too free-willed to ever believe her choices are irrelevant. In the end, it doesn’t matter. Not to him at least. He’s not the one who has to handle time – he just has to live with it.

(He doesn’t actually know if that makes it better or worse.)

The first time he sees her, he’s young and dumb enough to think that she’s returning for good. Coming home to their friends and family and to their city. To _him_. But he realizes she isn’t the moment he sees the grey touching the roots of her hair, the wrinkles beginning to form around the edges of her mouth, the sad and distant look of love in her eyes.

Sara touches his cheek lightly and he instinctively leans into her touch. She smiles gently. “You’re so young,” she says and leaves it at that.

He thinks it’s in that moment he knows she will never come home to him again.

 

**.**

 

The Oliver Sara meets in the beginning doesn’t feel like her Oliver – he’s older and further in their relationship than her, which means he knows more about their future than she does. More about her own future than she does. And, if she’s being honest, it isn’t exactly ideal for her. After all, she’s not a fan of walking into a situation blind.

It never used to be that way with Ollie and that was always one of the things she loved the most about being with him – she _knew_ him. She never had to feel blindsided when she was with him, because they understood each other in a way that no one else ever did. They could be honest with each other. There were never any secrets between them.

Not that she blames him for keeping them now. How can she when Sara knows that she was the one who told him (will tell him) not to reveal her future to her? Because even with the Time Masters gone, there are certain rules that have to be followed when dealing with the timeline. She _knows_ , but that doesn’t mean she likes it. Or how insecure it makes her feel when she’s with him.

Because every time he looks at her with all this love in his eyes, she can’t help but wonder if it’s for her, or a version of her only he knows.

But slowly, eventually, it changes. Time passes and she gets older and learns more, while he gets younger and less secure. Then, all of a sudden, it’s _her_ with all the answers and him with all of the questions he hasn’t learned not to ask.

Thea, with her morbid sense of humor, thinks it’s hilarious. _Mirror images_ , she calls them once. Two people who play the same role in different places. She’s almost right; Sara and Ollie do take turns playing the roles in their relationship, but it’s not at different places – it’s at different _times_. And Sara thinks that makes all the difference, because she’s not sure they will ever be at the same place at the same time.

They’re mirror images, and maybe that means one of them will always be reflecting onto the other.

 

**.**

 

Oliver returns just as the shower turns off. A moment later, Sara comes out of the bathroom wearing nothing but his shirt and a messy man-bun. She grins the moment she sees the coffee and donuts in his hand, and rushes to him. He thinks it’s the most excited he’s seen anyone for coffee since the morning after Tommy’s twenty-first birthday.

“Please tell me there’s still coffee in the future,” he says dramatically.

“Future, yes. Waverider, no. Apparently coffee beans can’t survive the time jump. Or so Gideon says,” Sara explains.

Oliver takes a sip of his coffee and nods as if he understands anything she just said. If Sara notices his confusion, she ignores it and turns to gather her clothes, humming tunelessly as she pulls her pants on. He sits to the side and watches her as she dresses, and wonders if this is one of those fixed moments in time – with him destined to wait for her now, just as he always waits for her while she travels throughout time.

“What’s it like?” he asks suddenly. “The future.”

He half expects her to pretend she doesn’t hear the question, or maybe give him some sort of comment about how there are rules and balances or something that have to be maintained so he can’t know his future. Instead, Sara shrugs. She never did like playing by the rules.

“Filled with terrible facial hair,” she says, grinning mischievously, the same way she did when she was sixteen and convinced him that egging Malcolm Meryln’s car was a good idea.

Oliver stares at her, trying to make sense of what she said. “Why do I get the feeling that’s about me?” he asks. Sara makes some non-committal gesture and she pulls her boots over her jeans. He pauses for a moment and, feeling particularly brave, asks, “How far in my timeline do you go?”

She tenses for just a moment, so briefly that if he weren’t looking for it, he wouldn’t have noticed her reaction. “Don’t… Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answers to, Ollie.”

“How do you know I don’t want the answer?”

Sara doesn’t say anything, but she doesn’t need to – he sees the answer on her face the moment he asks. She knows he doesn’t want the answer because she’s already been there with him. Because his future is her past. He’s always going to be one step behind her, one step away from her, never knowing what she knows, where she’s been. And that’s never going to change.

 

**.**

 

The future isn’t always concrete, especially when it comes to her time with Oliver. There are days where she meets him, where she finds him and he finds her – days that will stay with her forever, but will be rewritten for him. In 2046, for example, when she finds him hiding alone in a broken foundry, with one arm and no life left in his eyes. Which comes undone when she returns to Star City in time to help stop Grant Wilson’s rebellion, thus preventing Oliver from ever becoming that version of himself. So it’s always for the best, she knows, because the safety of their city, of the people in it, are way more important than any memory Oliver may lose.

But _she_ always remembers.

Sara sometimes wonders how that works. How something can actually be changed if she can still remember it. Because if she remembers it, it happened.

 _The Time Masters theorized that time is never actually erased_ , Gideon explains when Sara asks. _Rather an alternate version of the timeline is created – one that exists because of the memories of the Time Masters_. _It’s one of the reasons they were not meant to interfere with the timeline._

There is never a moment Sara hopes that isn’t true more than in 2035 when she cradles Oliver’s dying body in her arms as a result of poorly aimed gunshot meant for her.

The team manages to fix it, of course. Oliver is too crucial to the timeline, to the future of Star City, to be erased so soon. So they rewrite time and Sara never travels to that time period, so Oliver never sees her, so he’s never killed. But it doesn’t change the fact that all she sees when she closes her eyes are Oliver’s dying breaths. Especially considering that there’s a possibility that, out there somewhere in another timeline, it still happens.

“Do you wanna go and see him or something?” Jax asks when he finds her watching a hologram of what is now Star City in 2037. Oliver is having dinner with William, his partner, and their child. “It might help. Seeing him alive in person and all.”

Sara shakes her head. “No. Not yet.”

She isn’t sure she’d be able to hide her feelings, her relief, if she were to face him right now. Isn’t sure she would _want_ to hide it from him, honestly. So she stays away from Star City and Oliver for a few years, content with just know he’s alive.

 

**.**

 

“We should meet,” Oliver says once. Sara turns her head and stares at him without any words. She’s older this time – he can see the crow’s feet appearing on the corners of her eyes. He kisses them once, softly. “Properly, I mean. With a set time and place.”

She raises a brow. “Oliver Queen, are you asking me out on a date?”

“And if I am?”

She frowns. “You know I can’t guarantee I’ll be there. That’s not how this works.”

“But we can try,” he argues. “If it doesn’t work out, then so be it. But just this once, let’s _try_.”

Sara doesn’t answer at first. Instead she sits there for a moment as her fingers trace the scars on his back. There are one or two that are new to him, but are probably ancient history for her. Still, her fingers tread lightly over the fresh wounds. He sighs softly and closes his eyes, enjoying the feeling of her touch for as long as he will have it this time.

“When?” she asks as tenderly as her touch. It isn’t a promise, but it’s _something_.

He hadn’t thought of a date. Honestly, he hadn’t planned much further than his argument, mostly convinced that Sara would never actually agree. “February fifth,” he says. It’s the first date that comes to him. “2027.”

She stares at him for a moment with this unreadable look on her face. (She’s gotten better at that over the years, he thinks, hiding her thoughts from him. That or he’s gotten worse at being able to read her.) But eventually her eyes soften and a small smile tugs at the corner of her lips.

“Okay,” she says.

“Yeah?”

She nods. “Yeah. It’s a date.”

 

**.**

 

Sara is older when they’re given the mission.

(Old. Young. Somewhere in between. Those are the terms she learns to use to describe her age as she travels throughout time. It isn’t really worth keeping track of a number that doesn’t mean much anymore. She’s sure Gideon could tell her if she wanted, but what’s the point? It doesn’t change anything.)

The mission is simple: catch a rogue time traveler after Wally West and the Flash legacy. It’s so simple that she doesn’t even take backup. Which, as luck would have it, she doesn’t need, because the time traveler gets his dates mixed up and ends up crashing the biggest superhero reunion of the century. A reunion including everything from the West-Allen clan to Supergirl to Constantine to Team Arrow.

Including Oliver Queen.

He’s older than her this time – maybe even the oldest she’s seen him so far. He has wrinkles and grey hair and that _awful_ beard. But the way his eyes glimmer, the way his lips curl up, the way he looks at her is the same. After all, he’s her Oliver and some things never change. No matter how much time passes.

“You don’t look surprised to see me,” Sara says.

Oliver grins. “You haven’t been gone that long,” he says, mimicking the words she once told him.

His fingers brush against the hairs on her face. It’s only then that Sara notices the light reflecting off his hand and spots it – a simple gold band on his third finger. Oliver seems to realize it a moment after she does and, for a second, she thinks he will draw his hand back and try to hide it. Act as if it’s another one of their secrets they have to keep from one another. But he doesn’t. Maybe it’s something she’s meant to know, maybe it’s because he knows she’s already seen it, or maybe it’s because he’s just too old to care about timeline rules at this point.

“Welcome home, Sara,” he says instead, his hand cupping her cheek – the cool metal of the ring presses against her skin.

Sara closes her eyes and smiles, her hand covering his, and she realizes in that moment that what Oliver said isn’t wrong. Because despite all the years and the fact that she’s in the completely wrong city, in that moment, she’s _home_.

After all, some things never change, no matter how much time passes.

 

**.**

 

He knows there’s a good chance she won’t be able to make it to their date because of something or other related to the time travel rules that never seem to make sense to him. He also knows that Sara not making it would be no indication of her feeling for him or their relationship. Still, he wakes up on February fifth feeling more nervous than he cares to admit.

It all fades when he sees the back of her silhouette standing in front of the Patty Shack, and he remembers that there’s nothing to be nervous about because it’s _Sara_. His Sara. And, despite the odds, she found her way home to him.

But the closer he gets, the more the nervousness begins to creep back up again. It starts in the puts of his stomach and grows to the pounding in his chest so quickly that he feels dizzy. Because the closer he gets, the more wrong his Sara begins to look – in her stance, in her clothes, even in her hair.

She spins around and face him before he has the chance to even say her name. And standing in front of him there, looking just as surprised as he feels, is a very young Sara. The youngest yet, he’d wager by the confusion in her eyes.  

But, still, it’s _her_.

“Hello, Sara,” he says.

“Ollie?” she says as if it’s an actual question. “How did you find me?”

Once, back when the roles were reverse and he was the young one looking up to an older Sara, he asked her if she missed her Oliver when she was with him. The older Oliver, the one who knew what she had been through, the one she didn’t have to keeps secrets from. The Oliver, he always suspected, she loved more than him.

 _Sometimes_ , she’d confessed after a moment of hesitation. _But then I remember that it’s you I come home to, Ollie. It’s you that will always find me. Because you_ are _him_.

At the time, he thought she was full of it. That she was just trying to spare his feelings, or lessen the blow of their tragic relationship. But, standing there in front of a Sara he hadn’t expected, he realizes she had been right all those years back.

“I will _always_ find you.”

Because it doesn’t matter how young she is or that she isn’t the version he had planned to meet, because she’s Sara and he’s Oliver and time will never change that.

 

**.**

 

She finds him on the roof of Verdant, staring at where the Waverider would have been a few moments prior. He tenses slightly when he hears her footsteps approaching, but he doesn’t turn around.

“Ollie,” she says, allowing him to hear her voice, before brushing her fingers against his back. He relaxes under her touch. “Sorry I’m late for our date.”

“You weren’t,” he says before he turns to face her. “But you already knew that.” She gives him a tight smile and he continues before she can reply. “I’m actually glad you didn’t tell me. It… put some things in perspective for me.”

“Did it?”

“Yes,” he says, taking her hand. “You are _always_ going to come home to me. And I will _always_ find you.”

Oliver doesn’t say anything she doesn’t already know, but it’s still different this time. Because not only does he know it, not only does he accept it, Oliver seems genuinely happy about it. About them and this mess that they will always be. And it puts some things in perspective for her.

“Marry me," Sara says.

She thinks it may be the least thought out proposal ever, but it feels right in that moment. And it has nothing to do with the future and knowing what happens between them, and everything to do with this moment right now. About wanting it now. About wanting _him_.

Oliver stares at her for a moment before he rolls his head back and sighs. "I _cannot_ believe you just said that," he tells her. "Sara, _I_ was about to propose."

She stares at him for a moment as his words digest. When they do, she almost wants to laugh. "So," she says with a playful grin instead. "Is that a yes?"

He pursues his lips dramatically. "I don't know..."

"Ollie!"

He grins and lifts her hand. "Yes," he says kissing her ring finger. "Yes," he tells her, wrapping his arms around her. "Yes," he breathes, his lips barely brushing hers. "Yes. Yes. _Yes_. I will always say yes to you, Sara. Always."

This won’t make anything easier for them, Sara knows. Their relationship will likely always be out of sync, with one of them always having to hide the other’s future. But, she thinks for the first time, it isn’t as bad as it sounds. At least not when you compare it to everything else they have been through over the years. Yeah, it’s a little inconvenient, but they will always figure out a way to make it work. It’s them – Oliver Queen and Sara Lance – and they’ve faced a hell of a worse than an inconvenience.

“Good, because I’m not losing you, Oliver.”

She kisses him again, tightening her arms around him, pulling him as close to her as a mirror to its reflection. So closely connected that it’s impossible to separate them, no matter what. Because that’s the thing about mirrors, Sara realizes, you can never truly separate them from their reflections. So it doesn’t matter which one of them is the mirror and which one is the reflection as long as they reflect onto each other.

“You never will,” he promises her.

She believes him.

* * *

 " **I love. I have loved. I will love.”**

Audrey Niffenegger, _The Time Traveler's Wife_


End file.
